What's the girls equivalent of Eton & why?

[Dinaprettyballerina]

Just out of interest which English girls school is the one all sharp elbowed parents are trying to get their girls into? Eton has a reputation for having the pushiest parents with alot of overseas parents who are extremely invested in getting the very best education & getting their child in at all costs.. what is the female equivalent?

Only PM to ever go to a state school.

Yes, her sister seemed to have also been raised to be the "supporter" partner. Both attended top notch private schools & Scottish universities but never put their very privileged education to any meaningful use. Kate is our future queen consort & Pippa married a multi millionaire..

Truss went to Roundhay High School in Leeds and is quoted as saying it failed in its duty towards her…

Thatcher went to the Girls Grammar in Grantham after the local Primary school.

I'd say the equivalent is one of the Swiss Finishing schools.

John Major went to a grammar school.

Gordon Brown went to a grammar school too.

We have lots of very successful friends. Mostly, because DH did the Eton-Oxford-Bar thing, and I went to a high performing girls' school and UCL (but then into a more diverse, if competitive, profession).

While several of our successful male friends did go to 'top' schools, most went to decent comps, grammar schools or day schools. Not one of the professionally very successful women I know, either at work or personally went to a posh girls' boarding schools (I did have a university tutor expelled from Rodean in 1964), although many went to GDST schools or grammars. We've chosen a small independent day school for DD, and then she'll go to the local grammar sixth form.

A disproportionate number of DH and his brothers' old Eton pals are vaguely in PR, professional pilgrims or eternally writing a novel. Several are carpenters. Which I guess is another way to be in the cabinet.

We were reflecting the other day that none of our friends, even those who were at Eton, Charterhouse etc. are sending their kids away to traditional boarding schools. Mostly primary/ cosy prep and then onto independent day schools. I know one lady who has sent her child to Harrow. Both parents went to state schools, and she is a dedicated social climber. Noone else seems to feel it's a good choice nowadays, and I agree.

That is a crazy statistic... Oh my word. I think one of these top notch private girls schools need to teach girls to be leaders & specialise in it like Eton. If I could afford it I would love my girls to be taught how to be leaders in a global world not to be a supportive role to a wealthy powerful man... I think swishy hair is a requirement for the supporter role!

If I understand Wikipedia correctly, even Margaret Thatcher went to a state school.

@Eliannah I believe she's actually the only PM to have been to a comprehensive school (i.e. a non-selective state school).

@Eliannah that's completely wrong actually.

A quick google shows you this.

Love people who throw around falsehoods as fact.

Benenden.

I stand corrected, I'm very sorry throwing incorrect information around. I thought I heard her say that in her speech but I was incorrect.

I always thought Wycombe Abbey was the girls' equivalent of Eton.

St Paul's Girls' is the equivalent of St Paul's Boys' school or Westminster. Cheltenham Ladies College I always thought was more like Harrow. Could be wrong.

It's interesting the way Eton has been the trailblazer politically for boys & yet girls have top schools but none seem to have a strong political field. It's very much needed & indeed in state schools too

Cheltenham Ladies College of course.
My mother and Aunt went there.
Also my two sisters.
Also three cousins.

But none entered politics, far too sensible.

I know/went to uni with a LOT of superschool people (I went to an NI state school myself and am married to someone who def had a tough state background in a deprived area so def not a social climber!) - I have an Etonian ex and Harrovian ex, know a good few Winchester/Westminster/Radley etc etc etc types too. The equivalent girls who are many of whom still my mates went to Cheltenham Ladies, St Pauls, Downe House, Wycombe Abbey, either Benenden or Rodean. A few Putney High types.

i have never really thought about it but all the girls are: married at 25 to a banker, never worked, interior designer who def got her start decorating her enormous family’s enormous houses (who hilariously writes straight-faced descriptions on houzz like ‘as a design team we strove to understand this clients’ needs for her family’ - yes love, she’s your MUM), PA who doesn’t really care but supports her creative-industry husband.

By and large the grammar school girls have done much better, judges, agents, writers. Maybe because we had to!

as per pp, literally no one I know is choosing to send their kids away to boarding school which I find interesting and I know at least two who are fucked up secretly because of abuse or feeling abandoned. They would NEVER admit this publicly and it only came out in their 40s. However all seem extremely close to family.

@rainstorm101 great insight thank you! Yes grammar does seem to produce more career driven women. Boarding schools seem to appeal to Russians, Eastern Europeans & Asians who want the UK educational experience.. I don't know of any in our circle sending dc to boarding school, it doesn't seem the done thing anymore.

Truss was the only PM to go to non-selective school.

There's no equivalent like there's no female equivalent to the MCC. The institutions are too big, imbued (perhaps self-consciously) with their own culture and history. You might as well ask what's the American equivalent of Marmite.

I don't know about all the big girls' public schools but eg Wycombe is super strong academically but less than half the size of Eton and with a completely different feel. Girls' public schools are perhaps a bit less extreme than the biggest boys' schools in terms of cultural separation from real life.

Just popping back to say all these people I know are really delightful and most had no choice in where they went to school! I don’t want to sound like I am against them.

We were stuck in an area in london with severe problems in the local state school and tons of amazing £££ private schools, so I really saw the whole thing from a different angle. Neither of us are English so hadn’t thought the catchment thing through. We moved country though because neither option appealed, but most countries have some kind of agonising hierarchy of schools on some matrix somewhere. It’s just that everyone’s heard of Eton.

Where does JRM send his daughters? Id have thought that would be a clue.

Probably to a Catholic school. So that rules it out really.

Also, reflecting further, the theee harrovians I knew from the same year disliked each other and at least two of them never spoke to anyone from school again as they hated it, so so much for old boys network, and the Etonian was eccentric clever guy who’s dad was eccentric and clever and so had the money and the brains to send him there and to be honest it was a millstone around his neck trying to get on with ordinary life, his every day was filled with people either taking the piss out of him foe being posh or actually resenting him for it and he had a massive drink problem which he has I believe now got under control. Again, never known him speak to another person he went to school with. All the parents involved were just trying to do ‘the best’ for their kids but it was def a different time!

I think they’re still quite small, but imagine it will be a posh Catholic school.No idea which, I don’t know if Ampleforth is co Ed these days.

I think generations of upper class British people must surely have been left with mental health issues, unresolved trauma, attachment disorder, etc. due to being bundled off to school at 7.